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Macromedia to Port Flash MX to Linux?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the possible-plans-of-action dept.

LnxAddct writes "An article on CNet reports that Macromedia will start taking Linux more seriously. It will start this new initiative by making it's suite of tools run easily under WINE, then depending on the response it gets, it will port it's tools natively to Linux! Their Chief Software Architect, Kevin Lynch, stated, 'What we've been investigating is, When will it be time to bring our tools to Linux? I think it might be happening now.' Maybe 2004 will be the year of Linux."

7 of 702 comments (clear)

  1. Disaster waiting with WINE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They might as well just come out and say they will not support Linux. My experiences with WINE have been, shall I say, bitter. I've managed to get a few games running with it, but never without significant hassle or loss of resources (sound, fullscreen, etc.).

    The roadmap to desktop acceptance for Linux cannot go through WINE.

  2. Wrong Software To Port? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I applaud any efforts to get more software running natively on Linux, I have to ask: why Flash? I mean as far as most of us are concerned, it's the scourge of the internet, responsible for a slew of poorly designed sites, bad flash movies, and anoying advertisements. If Macromedia wants to go after the Linux crowd, wouldn't a more appreciable tool like Dreamweaver be a better choice?

    1. Re:Wrong Software To Port? by jimbosworldorg · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Because, whether you think it's generally a horrid abomination or not, more and more sites use Flash for essential navigation tools, and up until now, it's worked... inconsistently... at best under any platform but Win32.

      Native Flash rendering under *nix could be a very very big step forward towards getting mainstream acceptance for *nix as a mainstream desktop platform.

      --

      Coming soon to Slashdot: meta-meta-moderation!

    2. Re:Wrong Software To Port? by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why HTML? I mean as far as most of us are concerned, it's the scourge of the internet, responsible for a slew of poorly designed sites, bad GIF movies, and annoying advertisements. If Macromedia wants to go after the Linux crowd, wouldn't a more appreciable tool like Gopher be a better choice?

      ---

      Look, you can use any tool improperly. That doesn't mean the fault is with the TOOL. As with frames in HTML, so with Flash. A bad designer is going to do things badly, no matter the tool or technology.

  3. Re:Linux voids finally being filled... by capz+loc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A few months back I had the opportunity to talk with a representative from Adobe who said that they have no plans to release any of their products for Linux until there is a larger customer base.

    Unfortunately, this has become the chicken-and-egg scenario, where vendors won't make software for Linux until there are more people using it, while there will never be people migrating to Linux until there is more software that will run on it.

    As much as I hate it, I feel that WINE is a good intermediate step in this situation, because it gives Macromedia a low-commitment opportunity to feel out the Linux market without fully porting the software.

  4. Re:Sweet. by Hooded+One · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can speed up Acrobat significantly by getting rid of unneeded plugins, either by deleting them or moving them to another directory. There are only a small handful you'll ever actually use. It could still stand to be a lot faster, but it's better than it comes out of the box.

  5. Re:Thank god ... by Associate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right on!
    Friends don't let friends use flash.

    --
    Someone hates these cans.